Ezekiel 18

18: 1, 2 THE word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, and hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbour’s wife, neither hath come near to a woman in her separation; and hath not wronged any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment; he that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from 9 iniquity, hath executed true judgement between man and man, hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgements, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord 10 God. If he beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that doeth any one of these 11 things, and that doeth not any of those duties, but even hath eaten upon the mountains, and 12 defiled his neighbour’s wife, hath wronged the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination, 13 hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: 14 he hath done all these abominations: he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him. Now, lo, if he beget a son, that seeth all his father’s sins, which he hath done, and feareth, and doeth 15 not such like, that hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the 16 idols of the house of Israel, hath not defiled his neighbour’s wife, neither hath wronged any, hath not taken aught to pledge, neither hath spoiled by violence, but hath given his bread 17 to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment, that hath withdrawn his hand from the poor, that hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed my judgements, hath walked in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live. 18 As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, spoiled his brother by violence, and did that 19 which is not good among his people, behold, he shall die in his iniquity. Yet say ye, Wherefore doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. 20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon 21 him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and 22 right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his transgressions that he hath com- mitted shall be remembered against him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. 23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? saith the Lord God: and not rather that he 24 should return from his way, and live? But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? None of his righteous deeds that he hath done shall be remembered: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them 25 shall he die. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel: 26 Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal? When the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth therein; in his iniquity that he 27 hath done shall he die. Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. 28 Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, 29 he shall surely live, he shall not die. Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is 30 not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal? There- fore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Return ye, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be 31 your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, wherein ye have transgressed; and 32 make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live.

Chap. 18. The last verse of the preceding chapter declares that God is wont to abase the lofty and to exalt those of low estate. This gives occasion for a declaration of the principle upon which these providential dispensations proceed—viz., that every individual shall be equitably dealt with—a principle that precludes the children from either presuming on the fathers’ merits or despairing on account of the fathers’ guilt. A further link between the two chapters may be derived from the exemexemplification of this principle in the alternations of fortune and character in the later kings of Judah, from the time of Jotham downward. This chapter is an enlargement of Jer. 31: 29. B. C.

This chapter refutes the implication of injustice in God, involved in the use of the proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” The whole subject demands careful attention and candid, intelligent discriminations. For it should be remembered that in the standard moral law embraced in the Ten Commandments the Lord appends to the penalties of the second commandment, forbidding idolatry, these words: “Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those that hate Me;” and further, that the prophets had declared that God would and did send the Jews into captivity for the sins of Manasseh—e.g., 2 K. 24: 3, 4; 23: 26, 27; 21: 11-16. But these judgments fell not on Manasseh himself, but on his sons of the third and fourth generation—Josiah being in the second; his sons Jehoiakim and Zedekiah in the third, and Jehoiachin in the fourth. It need not surprise us therefore that this proverb should come to the lips of men who sought to justify themselves in their sins, and who were gratified to have even the least apology for arraigning the justice of God and for persisting in their sins, refusing to repent. The chapter will show us how the Lord meets this implication and how He enforces upon the people their personal duty. H. C.

The chief intention of this chapter is to show that God’s dealings with mankind would be regulated by the good or ill behavior of each individual, it being the invariable rule of His providence that punishment should follow guilt, and happiness be the reward of innocence. There was, it seems, a proverb or common saying among the Jews which implied a censure upon the justice of God, as if the calamities which befell the present generation were inflicted on them merely for the sins of their forefathers. God is pleased therefore to declare here that however children may be involved, in respect to this world, in the consequences of their parents’ guilt, impartial justice would ever be the rule of his conduct: temporal death was the declared punishment of sin to every man; and without repentance eternal death would follow. Travell.

The exiles made bitter complaint of the words of the second commandment, that God visits upon the children the sins of the fathers. They had repented, were idolaters no longer, and yet they had to suffer the consequences of the crimes of their forefathers. Now it is the law of God, in nature and in providence, that the children are affected for good and evil by the doings of their parents. Aptitudes gained by the parent are bestowed upon the child; sins and the diseases which result from them are constantly matters of inheritance; while the fortunes of the parent, his success or failure, his industry or his unthrift and profligacy, cannot but affect the temporal position of his offspring. But Ezekiel shows with bold hand that this entail is strictly limited, and does not affect the moral probation of the individual. Each one in life makes his own choice, and both in things temporal and things spiritual repentance may reverse the past. A pious son may spring from a profligate father, a prosperous son from one overtaken by misery. Nay, even in a man’s own life, the future may be the reverse of what has gone before. A lapse into sin may destroy the bright promise of former years (18, 33). R. P. S.

In this chapter Ezekiel anticipates in a remarkable manner some of the leading precepts of the Gospel, and we are not simply to regard this as a message of instruction given according to God’s pleasure, but to connect it closely with the time and circumstances under which it was delivered. 1. Taken in conjunction with what has gone before, it contributes to the general purpose and harmony of the whole book. The prophet having given a summary of the history of God’s people, and shown how continued apostasy had brought and was bringing upon them national judgment (16); and having warned king and people of the delusive character of their hopes of escape, feels it needful to guard them against attributing their calamities simply to the sins of their forefathers, and against merging individual in national responsibility. 2. The situation of the people was such as to call for and suggest such instruction. The judgments, in the approach of which they had long refused to believe, were at last making themselves too manifest to be overlooked. But the people were ready to evade the lesson which they should have learnt, by having recourse to the heathen principle of a blind fatality of retribution, which offered no means of escape either to the nation or to individuals, and so prevented consciousness of guilt and of responsibility. They had indeed a certain apparent ground to rest upon in the second commandment, where God declares that He will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children; but it was only apparent. Here God enunciates that which He declared throughout the Law, and which had been illustrated in the whole history of the people, that national sins should be followed by national judgment. (See Jer. 16: 11, 12; 32: 18.) This did not in fact interfere with the principle that each individual should be answerable for his own conduct, and should be equitably dealt with, any more than the fact that in all times temporal consequences of the acts of a nation or of individuals extend beyond themselves and their own times. The state of exile was intended to develop this principle, and so the prophet of the Captivity was led to anticipate in a remarkable manner the sublimer morality of the Gospel.

In this chapter is set forth fully the doctrine of individual responsibility. Already the same truth had been partially displayed with special reference to teacher and taught (3 : 18 foll.), in the deliverance of those upon whom the mark was set (9 : 4), and in the scrutiny of those who came to inquire of the Lord (14 : 3 foll.). But here the enunciation is more systematic and complete. The question is made to rest upon the fundamental proposition, All souls are Mine. Man is not simply to ascribe his existence to earthly parents, but to acknowledge as his Father Him who created man in His own image, and who gave and gives him the spirit of life. The relation of father to son is merged in the common relation of all (father and son alike) as sons to their heavenly Father.

The proposition is illustrated by special examples of the just man. And here the notion of justice or righteousness is enlarged from the letter to the spirit of the Law. The duties done and the sins avoided are those which are particularly noticed in the Law, and were the special duties and sins of his countrymen; but the Law is passing into the Gospel, and the duties upon which stress is laid are just those which our Lord in the vision of judgment requires of those who are to give an account to Him at the last day (Matt. 25 : 35, 36). But the contrast of the wicked and the just leads up to a further development of evangelical doctrine—repentance and forgiveness of sins. This doctrine is based upon the love and mercifulness of God, not indeed forgotten in the Law, but more fully revealed in the Gospel. (Cf. John 3 : 16 ; 1 Tim. 2 : 4.) If he who has been once just turns to wickedness, his previous justice shall be of no avail. On the other hand, the sinner who turns from his sin shall be welcomed and forgiven. It is out of place to inquire whether the person described as just, who afterward turns to wicked ways, was only apparently and not really what he seemed. The case is put simply as it is seen in the outward action, the inner motives and principles must be left to the judgment of God. The case of the fall of one who was once righteous is put first because man is in general ready enough to recognize the worthlessness of former virtue, when one has departed from it, and God grounds upon this recognition of the law of judgment the assurance of His law of mercy. The lessons of this chapter are repeated distinctly in 33 : 1-20, where the application is made (1) to the nation generally, and then (2) to the individuals composing it, with the view of awakening them to repentance.

The corollary of this doctrine is the efficacy of repentance, and the call to it is in a form characteristic of Gospel teaching. Make you a new heart and a new spirit. (Cf. 11 : 19 ; 36 : 26.) B. C.

1-3. The original rendered, “What mean ye?” demands rather the reason than the meaning. The sense is, Why should ye thus implicate the justice of God? The Lord would set the case in a light so clear that they must see the injustice of the implication which it involved. It does not by any means appear that the Lord proposes to change His policy—i.e., either His principles or His practice in His government, so that henceforth there should be no more occasion for using this proverb, while previously there may have been occasion. Its meaning as a proverb is simply, The fathers sin and the children suffer its penalty. H. C.

3. Ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb; or, as it may be read, Ye shall not have the use of this parable. The taking away of this parable is made the matter of a promise (Jer. 31 : 29). Here it is made the matter of a threatening; there it intimates that God will return to them in ways of mercy; here it intimates that God would proceed against them in ways of judgment. He will so punish them for this impudent saying, that they shall not dare to use it any more; as in another case (Jer. 23 : 34, 36). God will find out effectual ways to silence those cavillers. Or, God will so manifest both to themselves and others, that they have wickedness of their own enough to bring all these desolating judgments upon them, that they shall no longer for shame lay it upon the sins of their fathers that they were thus dealt with: “Your own consciences shall tell you, and all your neighbors shall confirm it, that you yourselves have eaten the same sour grapes that your fathers ate before you, or else your teeth had not been set on edge.” H.

4. This is the first point of the Lord’s reply. The affirmation, “are Mine,” implies not only ownership, but parental care and responsibility, and especially the governmental responsibility of dealing with them according to justice and never in violation of justice. The sinning soul and he only shall die, for his own sins and not for another’s. The words “die” and

“death” are used in the Scriptures in at least three diverse senses: 1. For the well-known dissolution of soul and body—natural death. 2. For a state of heart in which sin has absolute dominion and the soul is committed to sinning past all hope of recovery by its own exertions—a state often called spiritual death. 3. For the penalty of the Divine law for sin—an amount of suffering and evil thought of as indefinitely great, and called death because this word stands for the greatest earthly evil—the ultimate infliction possible for man to inflict on his fellow-man. The two former are not to be thought of in this connection. Only the third meets the conditions of the case. See the term used in the same sense by Jeremiah (31: 30; Hos. 13: 1). These principles, “all souls are Mine;” and “the sinning soul shall die,” are immutable and eternal. They had not been adopted since the Jews had begun to use this proverb and in consequence of this use. H. C.

He asserts and maintains His own absolute and incontestable sovereignty; Behold, all souls are Mine (verse 4). God here claims a property in all the souls of the children of men, one as well as another: First, Souls are His. He that is the Maker of all things is in a particular manner the Father of spirits, for His image is stamped on the souls of men; it was so in their creation, it is so in their renovation. He forms the spirit of man within him, and is therefore called the God of the spirits of all flesh, of embodied spirits. Secondly, all souls are His, all created by Him and for Him, and accountable to Him. As the soul of the father, so the soul of the son, is Mine. Our earthly parents are only the fathers of our flesh, our souls are not theirs, God challenges them. Now from hence it follows, for the clearing of this matter: 1. That God may certainly do what He pleases both with fathers and children, and none may say unto Him, What does Thou? He that gave us our being does us no wrong if He takes it away again, much less when He only takes away some of the supports and comforts of it; it is as absurd to quarrel with Him as for the thing formed to say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? 2. That God as certainly bears a good will both to father and son, and will put no hardship upon either. We are sure that God hates nothing that He has made, and therefore (speaking of the adult who are capable of acting for themselves) He has such a kindness for all souls, that none die but through their own default. All souls are His, and therefore He is not partial in His judgment of them. Let us subscribe to His interest in us and dominion over us. He says, All souls are Mine; let us answer, “Lord, my soul is Thine, I devote it to Thee, to be employed for Thee, and made happy in Thee.” It is with good reason that God says, “My son, give Me thy heart, for it is My own:” to which we must yield; “Father, take my heart, it is Thy own.”

Though God might justify Himself by insisting upon His sovereignty, yet He waives that, and lays down the equitable and unexceptionable rule of judgment by which He will proceed as to particular persons; and it is this: First, the sinner that persists in sin shall certainly die, his iniquity shall be his ruin. The soul that sins, it shall die, shall die as a soul can die, shall be excluded from the favor of God, which is the life and bliss of the soul, and shall lie forever under His wrath, which is its death and misery. Sin is the act of the soul; the body is but the instrument of unrighteousness, it is called the sin of the soul (Micah 6: 7). And therefore the punishment of sin is the tribulation and anguish of the soul (Rom. 2: 9). Secondly, the righteous man that perseveres in his righteousness shall certainly live. If a man be just, have a good principle, a good spirit and disposition, and, as an evidence of that, do judgment and justice (verse 5), he shall surely live, saith the Lord God (verse 9). H.

The analogies of nature, applied to the moral government of God, would crush all hope in the sinful soul. There, for millions of ages, these stern laws have reigned supreme. There is no deviation, no modification, no yielding to the refractory or disobedient. All is harmony, because all is obedience. Close forever, if you will, this strange book claiming to be God’s revelation; blot out forever its lessons of God’s creative power, God’s superabounding providence, God’s fatherhood and loving guardianship to man His erring offspring, and then unseal the leaves of that mighty volume which the finger of God has written in the stars of heaven, and in those flashing letters of living light we read only the dread sentence, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” O. M. Mitchell.

A pure benevolence never exists except where there also exists a pure rectitude and a pure holiness; and when guilt receives its condign punishment, benevolence is silent, while holiness approves and rectitude rejoices. In the clear and indisputable sayings of Scripture we are told that the wages of sin is death; that the soul which sinneth shall die. And there we find that from the moment a man becomes a transgressor he is under condemnation.

He occupies a new relation toward God—a relation of ever-augmenting remoteness—a remoteness which has no tendency to lessen itself, and which every new sin increases. In other words, Scripture to all intents teaches that sin is an infinite evil, meriting an enduring punishment, and that every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse both in this life and that which is to come. Hamilton.

5. Do that which is right. In all the great acts of life we have to subordinate mere feeling to conviction, impulse to principle, lively sensibilities to a law of right, and, provided we have just feeling enough to begin a commanded work honestly, we are to make the beginning. Put yourself directly where God has told you you ought to be, and then you will be in a position where the touching and inspiring objects which naturally rouse devout emotions will exert their power. Instead of waiting to feel more before you act at all, bestir yourself to act as you are, and your indifferent heart will be like coals of dulled fire under a rising wind. F. D. H.

The Bible says little of feeling directly, and appeals to it for the most part indirectly. This is like the grandeur of its reticence on many ideas, which are simply assumed, as are all the capital facts of man’s nature. All is based on the elementary ground that every man is capable of emotion. But with no attempt at the tragic or pathetic rendering of events, the Bible is of all books that one which most powerfully affects the feelings. And in this way it not only pays the strongest tribute to the power of human feeling, but it ennobles emotion by expecting much from it, and by showing how much God values it. But it never brings upon us that deadly malady of over-emotion which is caused by many a book. All feeling awakened by the Bible prompts to action. The far larger proportion of human emotion, for lack of consequent action, is fruitless. Emotion is like the sap that runs through the vine. Unless the result of the flow be fruit, it would be as well that no flow of the sap took place. Certainly there would be less disappointment in the end. Much sap pours into barren shoots. Much emotion evaporates in the subjective feelings of pity, distress or indignation, where it should turn into the precious fruits of hearty helpfulness, real assistance and strenuous labor to change the conditions which cause the need of commiseration or indignation.

A man’s resources for the purchase of life’s opportunities are his character, his time, his energies, his powers of mind and heart. The more he pays out these in opportunities for doing good and for growing wiser and better, the richer man he is. His wealth rises in a multiplying ratio. But if a man puts his energies into something which brings him only temporary pleasure, and no ultimate good; worse still, if he invests time and energy in what harms him, he is a moral spendthrift, and no matter what his natural gifts, he will exhaust himself at length, and turn out a bankrupt, a beggar at the last. If we buy the treasures of pure thought, high aims, a chaste imagination, helpful associations and habits, nothing can ever rob us of them. No panic or disaster can touch them, and we shall have treasures in heaven which corruption can never waste or change ever take away. S. S. T.

Money melts away, pleasure palls on the senses, the very world is in constant change. Our thoughts and feelings, our love and faith, are the only possessions which are permanently ours. These last forever, and only these. The soul which rests on the unchanging love of the Saviour is anchored in security amid the “wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.” Truth, purity, righteousness, love, self-sacrifice—these are facts in the nature of God; they are “eternal in the heavens.” But nothing else is eternal. J. F. Stevenson.

5-9. This is a description of a good man, drawn for those times, in view of the morals and immoralities of that age, and also of the precepts and prohibitions of the Mosaic law. Of this just man, thus described in detail, the Lord declares, “he shall surely live”—i.e., he shall not die in the sense of death as used in this chapter. He shall have the favor and blessing of God, and not His frown and curse. The point of the affirmation is that God deals with individual men on principles that never violate simple justice. H. C.

9. He shall surely live. By life is meant, in the Old Testament, all that happiness which is contained in the literal sense of the promises belonging to that covenant; and under these were comprehended the promises of a better life, wherein God will bestow upon His servants the peculiar marks of His favor. W. Lowth.

The true way to live is to bring to each duty that comes to our hand our wisest thought and our best skill, doing what appears to us at the time to be the right thing to do, and then leaving it, never regretting nor fretting about results. God has promised to guide us, and if we are living in true relations to Him we may expect guidance moment by moment as we go on. J. R. M.

10-13. The case here supposed is that of an apostate and recreant son of this just and good father. He is wicked—all the more so for the light of a godly and just example which he perpetually sins against. Shall this man live? By no means. He shall not live because his father was so good a man. For this very reason is his guilt the greater, and therefore for this reason all the more shall he die. His blood shall be on his own head. This is justice, and thus God evinces Himself just. H. C.

Gradually the mind that is familiarized with the notion of injustice grows unscrupulous and faithless. That is the history of all the gigantic public oppressions that have sent up their cry till the cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The warnings of the Old Testament prophets, through the periods of national decline, are almost constantly directed to uneven balances—to oppression and exaction, to legalized wrong, to the making of the poor poorer, and the burdens of the weak harder to be borne. F. D. H.

14-17. Here this wicked son becomes a father, and has a son who sees, abhors and forsakes his father’s sins. This case came directly to the main point of the proverb. The father has eaten sour grapes: shall the son’s teeth be blunted thereby? Shall the upright son die for the sins of his wicked father? Nay, verily. His virtue is really the greater because of the unpropitious circumstances under which and despite of which it has been developed.

18. To make the application of this case to the proverb the more palpable, the prophet recurs again to the ungodly father, described fully verses 10-13. He, being a wicked man, must die in his iniquity. His own sins demand this terrible doom! His doom is in no sense mitigated by his having a godly son. Ahaz and Amon were none the more favored of God for having such sons as Hezekiah and Josiah.

19,20. The prophet here supposes the people to reaffirm their position, though somewhat modestly, and in the form only of a question. But after all you have said, is it not true that sons bear the iniquity of their fathers? The Lord answers: When the son, even of a wicked father, does right, he shall live. The soul that sinneth (and he only) shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall determine his destiny: the wickedness of the wicked shall decide his doom.

21,22. The people doubtless made use of this proverb and of its unjust implication of wrong on God’s part, to relieve their conscience from the pressure of obligation to repent. Hence the tone of these and the following verses bears directly to the point of counteracting this influence and of persuading them to repent. Though you have sinned, yet if you will turn from all your sin and do only right, you shall live and not die. All your transgressions shall be forgiven and not be mentioned any more against you. Because of the new moral course unto which ye turn, ye shall live. It was vital to the best moral results that the people should see that repentance brings salvation, even to the chief of sinners.

23. Is it any pleasure to Me that the wicked man should die? Is it not rather My supreme pleasure that he should turn from his wicked ways and so should live? The people may have thought otherwise. It may have seemed to them that God took delight in visiting the penalties of an awful death on the wicked. If they had thought so, they did not know the heart of God; they had entirely misapprehended His nature; they had never seen and appreciated His deep, eternal love! For the most glorious, most blessed truth ever revealed of God to this sinning world is here—that God has compassion toward even very guilty sinners; is pained and not pleased when He must punish; is delighted, even to infinite joy, when the sinner turns from his ways and lives. H. C.

He is almighty to pardon; but He will not use it for thee, an impenitent sinner. Thou hast not a friend on the bench, not an attribute in all God’s name will speak for thee: Mercy itself will sit and vote with the rest of its fellow-attributes for thy damnation. God is able to save and help in a time of need; but art thou so bold with God as to expect His saving arm to be stretched forth for thee? That almighty power of God which is engaged for the believer’s salvation is as deeply obliged to bring thee to thy execution. God Himself is under an oath to be the destruction of every impenitent soul. That oath which God swore in His wrath against the unbelieving Israelites, that they should not enter into His rest, concerns every unbeliever to the end of the world. Gurnall.

24. Still another phase of the general question requires notice. Suppose a man has lived righteously a long time and has accumulated what might be accounted a stock of righteousness. If then he turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, shall he live? By no means. All his stock of accumulated righteousness goes for nothing—“shall not be mentioned;” in his sins he must die. So men must abandon all hope of God’s favor on the ground of having once done right—if they turn from that righteousness and commit iniquity. H. C.

The threatenings imply there is a possibility of the saints falling away considered in themselves; but not that they are ever totally deserted by the Holy Spirit and left under the reigning power of sin. The threatenings are intended to awaken their care, are preservatives of them from ruin, and have a singular influence on their perseverance. A vigilant and cautious fear establishes the certainty of their hope. Indeed from the relics of weakness and corruption in the saints they sometimes actually fall into presumptuous sins, and by rebellious relapses wound conscience, and let out much of the vital spirits, their graces and comforts. But though the Divine nature is miserably wasted by such sins, yet it is not abolished. The new creature may decline in beauty and strength, yet life remain. Between a lively and dead faith there may be a fainting faith; as in Peter, for certainly our Saviour was heard in His prayer for him that his “faith should not fail” in his dreadful temptation. The saints do not by a particular fall extinguish the first living principles of obedience, faith and love; nor change their last end by an entire turning from God to the world. In short, a single act of wickedness does not reduce them into a state of unregeneracy; for it is not the matter of the sin singly considered, but the disposition of the sinner that denominates him. If grace in the saints should utterly perish, as some boldly assert, their recovery would be impossible; for the apostle tells us, that “if those who are enlightened, and had tasted of the heavenly gift,” that had been under some common workings and lower operations of the spirit, if such fall away universally, and live in a course of sin opposite to their former illuminations and resolutions, it is impossible to renew them by repentance; how much more then if those who were truly sanctified by the Holy Spirit should entirely lose all those gracious habits planted in them in their regeneration? But David, though guilty of adultery and murder, sins of so foul a nature as would dishonor paganism itself and “made the enemies of God to blaspheme,” was restored by repentance. The Gospel propounds a remedy not only for sins committed before conversion, but after it. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” God does not revoke the adoption nor reverse the justification of a believer, but upon scandalous disorders the effects of justification are suspended with respect to the new contracted guilt until there be sincere and actual repentance. He is not disinherited, but his right to the kingdom of heaven is eclipsed as to the comfortable sense of it, nay suspended till by renovation he is qualified and made fit for the enjoyment of that pure inheritance. Bates.

25-28. Here the implication, tacitly involved in the proverb, is brought out palpably—a charge of injustice in God. They say the course of God’s moral administration is not equitable. It violates justice. This is the charge of the people against God. To this the Lord replies, squarely asserting the perfect justice of His own ways, and the injustice of theirs. It is your ways that are unequal: Mine are always equal. The points of argument made here are these two: 1. That a righteous man, turning from his righteousness and doing wrong, shall die for his iniquity. 2. That a wicked man, considering his ways and turning from his wickedness, shall surely live and not die. These great features of God’s moral administration over a sinning world are so obviously equitable; they so plainly cover the whole ground of justice and of mercy, and so commend themselves to every man’s conscience and moral sense as intrinsically right and good, that they are naturally the end of all argument. More is superfluous.

29-32. His perfect justice is reaffirmed in the same terms as before (verse 25); declares that He will judge them every one according to his ways; and exhorts them therefore to repent and turn from all their transgressions: else iniquity must be their ruin. So doing, it shall not be. “Casting away all transgression,” is here essentially equivalent to “making to themselves a new heart and a new spirit.” The putting away of sin supposes sin to be abhorred, supposes that the heart turns to God to obey and to love Him supremely. This and nothing less than this God implies in this exhortation; this and nothing less God demands of every sinner, and demands it with infinite reason. This reasonable duty God presses here as the only alternative to the doom of death. Do this—for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Do this—else you must die, past all mercy, past all possibility of salvation. And why should you choose death? Why doom yourselves to so dire an end when life is before you, and when God so earnestly longs to see you turning from your sins to accept and insure it forevermore!

In the second command the recital of the penalty has these words: “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me” (Ex. 20: 5). This special statement was precisely fulfilled in the fact that the sins of Manasseh are repeatedly represented to be those which the Lord “could not pardon” and must punish; while yet the punishment in the form of dethronement, captivity and a violent death fell upon his children of the third and fourth generation. Now it was probably in view of these facts that the people brought into current use this proverb—cited also by Jeremiah (chap. 31: 29, 30) and rebutted there in the same way as here. How does the Lord reply and rebut this allegation? Not by any attempt, even the least, to explain the philosophy of the penalty attached to the second commandment; not by showing why He governs nations with much long-suffering and waits through many generations of individual men, far down in the nation’s life, still pressing His agencies for reform and laboring to save the whole people from the ruin toward which they are tending. Not thus does He condescend to debate this matter, although He might have done so—but He makes His response directly and squarely practical, to the heart and conscience of the people. He says to them virtually, There is no need just now that ye concern yourselves with the policy of God in His government of nations as such. Suffice it for you that ye personally stand or fall before God on your individual life. With every individual man, whether king or subject, I deal in perfect equity, never punishing any one sinner for the guilt of another sinner; never the son for the sins of his father. Do right and you live; but persist in sinning, turn from righteousness to sin, and you surely die. I have no pleasure in your death; I long to see you repenting and living righteously with a new heart and a new spirit. So shall my heart be cheered and gladdened in your eternal peace and life. This was the vital thing that needed to be said. This was all that the case really demanded. This rebutted the allegation of injustice on God’s part, and brought the greatest possible pressure upon the heart and conscience toward repentance and salvation. Let us recur to the fact that the sins of Manasseh were made prominent as involving the nation in guilt which the Lord could not pardon; also, that in the event the national ruin fell on his children of the third and fourth generation; and that this fact may have had some influence to bring into vogue the proverb which leads the discussion in this chapter. Here then note that this discussion brings out the very principle on which the Lord spared Manasseh. He repented; broke off his sins by righteousness; and found mercy. The case was one of exceedingly great and rich moral power as an encouragement to the vilest of sinners to return to the Lord their God. Was it not, at least mainly, for the sake of affording scope for the influence of this example that the Lord delayed the infliction of His judgments upon the nation, and yet prolonged their space for repentance! In this point the Lord has the same policy with nations as with individuals, suddenly arresting His judgments at the very moment when they are ready to smite the guilty, if any new circumstances inspire fresh hope or develop some yet untried influence which may possibly lead to repentance. Manasseh’s long-continued wickedness had depraved and almost sunk the nation; his late repentance cast a gleam of hope athwart the darkness; and God therefore not only spared him, but postponed His annihilating judgments for the sake of one other earnest effort to reclaim and save a guilty people. H. C.

30-32. We have here the conclusion and application of this whole matter. After a fair trial at the bar of right reason the verdict is brought in on God’s side, it appears that His ways are equal; judgment therefore is next to be given; and one would think it should be a judgment of condemnation; but behold a miracle of mercy; the day of grace and Divine patience is yet lengthened out; and therefore, though God will at last judge every one according to his ways, yet He waits to be gracious, and closes all with a call to repentance and a promise of pardon upon repentance. Here are four necessary duties that we are called to; all amounting to the same. We must repent; we must change our mind and change our ways; we must be sorry for what we have done amiss and ashamed of it, and go as far as we can toward the undoing of it again. We must turn ourselves from all our transgressions (verse 30) and again (verse 32). Turn yourselves, face about; turn from sin, nay, turn against it as the enemy you loathe, turn to God as the Friend you love. We must cast away from us all our transgressions, we must abandon and forsake them with a resolution never to return to them again; give sin a bill of divorce, break all the leagues we have made with it, throw it overboard, as the mariners did Jonah, for it has raised the storm; cast it out of the soul, and crucify it as a malefactor. We must make us a new heart and a new spirit. This was the matter of a promise (chap. 11 : 19), here it is the matter of a precept; we must do our endeavor, and then God will not be wanting to us to give us His grace. St. Austin well explains this precept; God does not enjoin impossibilities, but by His commands admonishes us to do what is in our power, and to pray for what is not.

Here are four good arguments used to enforce these calls to repentance. It is the only way, and it is a sure way, to prevent the ruin which our sins have a direct tendency to. So iniquity shall not be your ruin; which implies that if we do not repent iniquity will be our ruin here and forever, but that if we do we are safe, we are snatched as brands out of the burning. If we repent not we certainly perish, and our blood will be upon our own heads. Why will ye die, O house of Israel? What an absurd thing to choose death and damnation rather than life and salvation. The reason why sinners die is because they will die, they will go down the way that leads to death, and not come up to the terms on which life is offered; herein sinners, especially sinners of the house of Israel, are most unreasonable and act most unaccountably. The God of heaven has no delight in our ruin, but desires our welfare; I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies (verse 32), which implies that He has pleasure in the recovery of those that repent; which is both an engagement and an encouragement to us to repent. We are made forever, if we repent; Turn yourselves, and live ye. He that says to us, Repent, thereby says to us, Live, yea, He says to us, Live; so that life and death are here set before us. H.

30. The limitations of God’s pardoning love are regulated by the contrition and faith of its recipients. Repentance and forgiveness always go hand in hand throughout the Bible and human experience. The least sin unconfessed and unforsaken shuts a man out from hope. The greatest sin, if sincerely and honestly mourned over and acknowledged, is no barrier to a full forgiveness. E. M.

It is not unworthiness, but unwillingness that bars any man from God. Thousands have missed of Him by their unwillingness, but He never put off one soul on account of its unworthiness. Flavel.

Responsibility and sovereign grace receive equal and balanced emphasis in the Scriptures. No theory of responsibility is biblical which makes man competent to save himself. No theory of grace is biblical which makes man passive in regeneration, supernaturally acted upon without his knowledge and election, irrespective of the moral temper of his personal life. The bondage of the will is not its paralysis or extinction. There may be only a despairing cry, like that which escaped from Paul when he pictured the man in whom the Divine law had made its living authority felt; but there is life in a cry. Neither responsibility nor grace may be reduced to a thing of mechanics. The Bible does not do that. It affirms both with equal boldness, with an utter absence of conscious contradiction; and, in its ever-blending homage to the behests of moral law and the confession of moral weakness, in its language of mingled self condemnation and appeal for mercy, the soul of man but repeats and confirms the speech of inspiration. Behrends.

31. God promises (chap. 36 : 26) to “give them a new heart,” and to “put within them a new spirit;” here He exhorts them to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit. Which difference of expression is thus to be reconciled, that although God works in us to will and to do, and is the first mover in our reformation, yet we must work together with His grace, at least willingly receive it, and not quench or resist its motions. W. Lowth.

It must never be forgotten, the repentance of the sinner is the demand of God. Even the Almighty can only bestow life on the condemned sinner on condition of repentance; yea, the being who obstinately has pleasure in his own death must finally receive that which, in opposition to God’s pleasure, he has chosen as his portion. Repentance, how should it be possible, if the glad tidings of the merciful forgiveness of sins were not first brought and given? But, on the other hand, how should we be able to boast of the unparalleled love to sinners of a compassionate God, and yet, unrepentant in heart, persevere in the old sinful course? Van O.

Why will ye die? Every word is emphatic. Why—show God or man one reason. Will—obstinacy alone—a determination not to be saved, or a voluntary listlessness about salvation—can prevent you. Ye—children of so many mercies, fed and supported by a kind God all your life; ye, who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; ye, who have made many promises to give up yourselves to God; ye, who have been dedicated to the ever blessed Trinity, and promised to renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Why will ye die? Die! what is this? A separation from God and the glory of His power forever! Die—forfeiting all the purposes for which your immortal souls were made. Die—to know what the worm is that never dieth; and what that fire is that is never quenched! Why, then, will ye die? A. C.

The clearest, the most dreadful declarations of the eternity of the unbeliever’s ruin are those uttered by Jesus. Men sometimes babble of a difference, even a contrast, between the theology of Paul and of his Master. They talk of Paul as the austere logician, excogitating a rigid system of dogmas; they prefer, they say, to turn to the teachings of the “meek and lowly Jesus,” whose theology is that of love. Well, one thing do we know: never was there love like unto His love! It surpassed the love of woman. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” He laid down His for enemies! No man can see one trait of cruelty in this Jesus; for His life was a ministration of kindness, not to the deserving, but to the “publican and sinner.” Never did the cry of human woe strike His ear in vain; never did human anguish appeal in vain to His soul while on earth. And He knew, also, the real facts; for He came from the world of spirits and thither He went back. How comes it, then, that this meek and loving Jesus uttered His warnings against hell, in words sevenfold more frequent and solemn than the “austere” Paul? Is this also done in love? Yes; the beauty of His beneficent life and death permits us to think nothing else. If, then, it is the tenderest heart in the universe which comes out to us most fearfully, “Beware of the pit!” what shall we think? Is it because He who knows best, and loves us best, is most fully informed of its inevitable certainty and its intolerable pains? Hear this Divine pity, then (Mark 9: 43, 44; Matt. 18: 34; 13: 41, 42; 25: 30-46; Luke 16: 23-26; Rev. 6: 16, 17). Dabney.

When the portals of this world have been passed, when time and sense have been left behind, and this “body of death” has dropped away from the liberated soul, everything which clouded the perceptions, which dulled the vision, which drugged the conscience while on earth, will be cleared off like a morning mist. We shall see all things as they really are—ourselves and our sins among the number. We shall judge ourselves as God has always judged us. Our missed or lost opportunities; our forfeited birthright; our glorious possibility—ineffable in its glory; our awful actuality—ineffable in its awfulness; the nature which God gave us—the nature we have made ourselves; the destiny for which He designed us—the destiny to which we have doomed ourselves; all these things will grow and fasten on our thoughts, till the contemplation must terminate in madness, were not madness a mercy belonging to the world of flesh alone. But there is yet another retributive pang in wait for the sinful soul, which belongs to the very nature of the future world—namely, the severance from all those we love, who on earth have trod the narrower and better path. The affections do not belong to the virtuous alone: they cling to the sinner through all the storms and labyrinths of sin; they are the last fragments of what is good in him that he silences or lays aside or tramples out; they belong not to the flesh, but to the spirit; and a spiritual existence, even if a suffering one, will but give them fresh energy and tenacity, by terminating all that has been antagonistic to them here below. Then will begin a retribution indeed, the appropriate anguish, the desolate abandonment of which who can paint, and who will be able to bear! To see those eyes, never turned on us before save in gentleness and trust, now giving us one last glance of Divine sadness and ineffable farewell; to watch those forms, whose companionship cheered and illuminated all the dark places of our earthly pilgrimage, and once and again had almost redeemed us from the bondage and the mire of sin, receding, vanishing, melting in the bright distance, to join a circle where they will need us not, to tread a path to which ours bears no parallel and can make no approach; and then to turn inward and downward, and realize our lot, and feel our desolation, and reflect that we have earned it—what has poetry or theology pictured that can compete with a Gehenna such as this! Greg.

Let the fairest star be selected, like a beauteous island in the vast and shoreless sea of the azure heaven, as the future home of the criminals from the earth; and let them possess in this material paradise whatever they most love, and all that it is possible for God to bestow; let them be endowed with undying bodies, and with minds which shall forever retain their intellectual powers; let them no more be “plagued with religion;” let no Saviour ever intrude His claims upon them, no Holy Spirit disturb them, no God reveal Himself supernaturally to them; let no Sabbath ever dawn upon them, no saint ever live among them, no prayer ever be heard within their borders; but let human beings exist there forever, smitten only by the leprosy of hatred to God, and with utter selfishness as the all-prevailing and eternal purpose; then, as sure as the law of righteousness exists, on which rests the throne of God and the government of the universe, a society so constituted must work out for itself a hell of solitary and bitter suffering, to which no limit can be assigned except the capacity of a finite nature. Norman McLeod.

32. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth. The Holy Scriptures in general expressly declare that the good and gracious God was from the beginning and is still using the best, fittest, and wisest means to render all His creatures, one as well as another, blessed and happy; and if any of them through their own self-willed obstinacy and perverseness miss of these joys, it will be greatly contrary to His inclination and desire. Thus when Adam was in paradise, the good God kindly cautioned him against the danger of disobedience. And when man by transgression fell He immediately comforted him, by telling him of the remedy He had prepared for his reconciliation and recovery, even the Seed of the woman which was to bruise the serpent’s head; that Seed in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed; and who in the fulness of time was to “give His life a ransom for many,” to “taste death for every man.” And in consequence of this first promise, how gracious, yea, how compassionate, is the tenor of every declaration, which He made from time to time on this head. “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? Make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Why will ye die, O sons of Adam? seeing that God would have all men to be saved, and is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Dean Tucker.

God could cause all transgressors to perish in and on account of their iniquities, without any one having a right to complain of injustice. And yet He has no pleasure in that which

He has essentially a right to do; He makes no use of that right; He would much rather mourn it, if the ungodly must needs perish. Assuredly, we must not understand that which the Scripture reveals to us of Divine sorrow and repentance in a manner unworthy of God; no human representation may be taken but in a Divine sense. The Infinite One is indeed infinitely exalted above human motives and affections; but as little should we represent the Merciful One as seated on the throne of the universe in, immovable, unchanging repose, which would not be disturbed although a whole guilty world sank down into perdition. Nay, a lost sinner is a pearl the less in the glorious crown of Christ; another victim for the insatiable powers of darkness: how should all this not concern the Father, from whom the whole race in heaven and earth are named? Van O.

The great lesson to be learned from this chapter is the necessity of a good life in order to the attainment of everlasting happiness. Sincere piety toward God, kindness and charity to our neighbor, temperance, soberness and chastity in the government of ourselves, these are the qualifications required by God. The inbred corruption of mankind and the infirmity of our nature are lamentable hindrances to our strict performance of these duties; “the corruptible body presseth down the soul,” so that “in many things we offend all.” But God has mercifully provided a remedy for our weakness, and even for our grievous sins. Hearty repentance and amendment of life were the conditions required from the Jews for regaining the Divine favor. From us also are they strictly required; but thanks be to God, we have a “Mediator of a better covenant,” through whose blood we have remission of our sins; and by persevering in a righteous course we shall not fail to find acceptance with God. Let us, then, put our trust in God through the merits of this merciful Redeemer, let His law be the constant rule of our lives, and whenever we err from it, let us immediately repent and turn unto the Lord our God, “so iniquity shall not be our ruin.” Travell.